The three lead actors all died in 2005.
Hugo Butler, a victim of the blacklist, only received credit for his screenplay in 1997, 29 years after his death.
The producers of the film wanted Luis Buñuel to use Orson Welles for the role, with Buñuel refusing, saying he was too loud and too fat. They arranged a screening of Welles' Macbeth (1948) to show how a bearded Welles would look, but Buñuel demanded Dan O'Herlihy, who played Macduff in that film, for the lead role.
Based in part (among many others) on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a pirate marooned for four years off the coast of Chile.